California Health Insurance Quotes and Blog

When you are travelling outside your home country, your current health insurance plan may not cover hospital expenses if you need medical attention. In many cases, your health insurance will only cover you in the country you purchased it, be it the US or elsewhere. If you want to have protection against foreign medical expenses, you should consider a travel health insurance policy. Travel Health Insurance covers the worldwide traveler for unexpected accidents or illnesses while visiting a foreign country. Travel health insurance is smart choice to be prepared in case of an emergency.

If you are using a travel agent to help you plan your trip, they can help you find the right travel health insurance plan. Many travel health insurance plans will cover more than just your health. Several travel health insurance plans will also include such benefits as emergency evacuation, lost baggage, trip delays and more. If you are not using a travel agent, there are several travel health insurance agents online where you can compare prices and plans.

Some people enjoy more adventurous vacations with activities that could be potentially dangerous. Kayaking, horseback riding, skiing, paragliding… The list goes on. We all want to try new things that we have never done before while on vacation because it’s adventurous. If you plan to partake in one of these activities, optional hazardous sports rider are available for the adventurous traveler. Check for this extra coverage while shopping for your travel health insurance plan. Often you will find that these more adventurous activities will be considered armature sports and not covered on a regular travel health insurance policy without the hazardous sports rider for travelers.

Many vacationers have saved their hard earned money for months and months to go on their dream vacation. Of course you want everything to go smoothly, but, unforeseen circumstances may force you cancel of your travel plans. Or you may find that while on vacation you need to cut your trip short due to an emergency back home. To protect yourself against this type of lose you should look into Trip Cancelation Insurance and/or Trip Interruption insurance. Benefits provide for cancelled trip, unexpectedly cutting a trip short, travel delays, baggage delays, emergency medical evacuation and more.

Vacations are a time to feel stress free, adventurous and to see new places and try new things. They are not a time to be careless or reckless with your financial stability. Be smart, protect yourself from an unexpected loss with travel health insurance and trip cancelation insurance.

Cindy Ehnes, director of the state Department of Managed Healthcare, wrote an article in Capitol Weekly describing how California will be cracking down on fraudulent discount health plans. California will be posing new regulations to license company’s, imposing strict consumer protections for those wishing to sell their discount plans in California. The department issued an alert, warning Californians of deceptive discount health plans and suggesting questions to ask. The alert is available in English and Spanish at www.hmohelp.ca.gov. In 2007 the DMHC received more than 200 consumer complaints about discount health plans, almost one third of which were because the consumer believed the discount plan to be insurance. “In the past month, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of complaints regarding discount plans, so it would appear that some fraudulent companies may once again be marketing heavily in California” she said.

A discount health plan is not health insurance. A “discount plan” is provided by organizations that arrange discounts for medical services, often issuing a card to you for that purpose. And the providers are not obligated to accept the discount plan, so not all doctors and facilities participate. Be very cautious and thoroughly research any discount health plan you are considering.

This is something that may shock you! Insurance is a business, not a charity, which is why a growing number of people are in the ranks of the uninsurable. They are there as a consequence of their own actions.

If you were an insurance company who could provide a health care insurance plan to someone for $86 a month, but that someone was taking a brand name drug for something that cost $230 a month, what insurance company in the world would want this person as a client? They would lose money on them before they even got coverage. Yes, the bottom line is this: insurance is a business, and consumers must wake up and smell the coffee.

Smelling the coffee involves understanding how the health care system is being over-utilized for things it was never supposed to be covering. When health care insurance was brought into existence, the intention behind the business was for citizens to use insurance for the “big things” in life - broken legs, heart operations, etc.

Now the system is being over-used, and often abused, as consumers run to the doctor for every little cut and bump without regard for the enormous costs incurred by consulting with a specialist. If a patient goes to the doctor and says they just saw a certain drug on TV and wondered if it could help, and the doctor consents to try it, that patient has just started taking a brand name drug, and is now classified as having a pre-existing condition.

Is this a two-way street? In this example both the doctor (who should likely know better) and the patient have created a situation where the patient will not quality for heath care insurance. The patient will soon face a dilemma if they are uninsurable - what about the “big things” that happen, leading to a genuine need for the health care system? Where will they be without insurance? The unfortunate answer is: in a major financial crunch.

The moral of the story is: think twice before you run to the doctor for everything that ails you because the price could very well be an inability to get health insurance in the future. Also, over usage of policies by the policy holders is an expense that is shared with rate increases.

For more information please visit www.mattsinsurance4ca.com or contact Matt Lockard by email at matt@mattsinsurance4ca.com